Academic discipline

An academic discipline, academic field or field of study is the development of knowledge on a specific topic, which is thought or investigated in a college, a study center or a university. The disciplines are (partly) defined and recognized by the academic publications where the results of research processes are exposed and by the academic, intellectual or scientific circles to which the researchers belong.

Fields of study generally have numerous branches or subdisciplines, and the lines that distinguish them are often arbitrary and ambiguous.

History

In Scholastic Europe there were only four faculties in one university: Theology, Medicine, Jurisprudence and Art; the latter considered in a lower plane with respect to the other three. Contemporary university disciplines belong to the processes of secularization of the university that began in the mid-nineteenth century when the traditional medieval curriculum was replaced by vernacular languages ​​and their literature and science and technological disciplines such as physics, chemistry, biology and engineering were added to the four traditional faculties.

At the beginning of the 20th century, new disciplines such as education, sociology and psychology were born. In the 1970s and 1980s there was an "explosion" of new and numerous disciplines that focused on increasingly specific studies. Disciplines such as women's studies, minority group studies, specific environmental studies, and many others are emerging in many places. Some disciplines were designed as preparation for careers and professions such as nursing and hospital administration, among others. Finally, we begin to talk about interdisciplinary studies in scientific fields such as biochemistry, geophysics, sociology and psychology and their contributions to knowledge gained great prestige.

Lastly, the division into disciplines is not a peaceful activity and is not accepted by all scholars, many of whom view the subject with strong criticism. Even many "disciplines" are discussed as such and for this reason great debates can be found about it.